First Prize. International Competition “Future Wimbledon” by Lugadero

Description of the project by Lugadero

“Play Wimbledon”, the title of our entry, proposes a public participation process in which games and playful activities engage people to participate.  The process proposes a series of small interventions that can achieve major improvements step by step.

The competition had two categories: “Creative Communities” for local community groups and “Rising Stars” for professionals. The Creative Community prize was awarded to Wimbledon East Hillside Residents Association’s proposal and the “Rising Stars” prize was awarded to our proposal.

What the judging panel said about our proposal

The judging panel, convened by the Design Council, included renowned professionals from architecture: Paul Finch (chair), Alison Brooks, Peter Murray, Morag Myerscough and Wayne Hemmngway. These are some of their quotes about our proposal.
 

"There is something good about having smaller discrete projects that don't depend on others - it means they can be implemented individually, concurrently or at different stages.

Play Wimbledon treats the town centre as a campus rather than a mega structure to be replaced by another mega structure.

It is a demonstrably intelligent approach to thinking about a town centre and its many opportunities in both the short and long term.

Its playfulness is refreshing and appealing and makes the city feel less daunting, rather something that can be enjoyed with others.

Projects can be implemented over time and allow for the response to be gauged.  The vision can respond to any option put forward by Crossrail."

Play Wimbledon

Town centres are attractive when they have appealing places to live, work, eat and play. The new rapid connection between Wimbledon and Central London—Crossrail 2—is a unique opportunity to enhance these four pillars for making the town centre an enjoyable place for locals and visitors. We believe it is the last one of these four pillars—PLAY—the one that should lead the process of transforming Wimbledon into a better place to live, work and visit. We propose a process for rethinking the future of Wimbledon in which games are the leading vectors of change.

Gamification

“Gamification is the use of game thinking and game mechanics in non-game contexts to engage users in solving problems.” (Wikipedia)

Gamification has normally been used as a marketing strategy to encourage the engagement with a product. Our proposal explores how gamification can be used in urban design to encourage citizens to engage and participate in the process of transformation of Wimbledon.

PLAY WIMBLEDON proposes a gamification strategy to encourage the emergence of new public spaces in the heart of Wimbledon through playful activities. A public space appears when a place has certain features that motivate citizens to develop activities there, play on it, or just stay there and relax. Aldo van Eyck, in post-war Amsterdam, designed and built numerous playgrounds in bombed sites, empty plots or in spaces between tower blocks to recover the use of the public realm in a city that had suffered the devastation of the war. Van Eyck used the strategy of introducing games in the public realm to motivate its continuous use and to make a more enjoyable city. Following the example of van Eyck, our strategy proposes the installation of a series of devices that catalyse the appearance of playful activities in the public realm: structures to access the rooftops, escalators, a big dome, gigantic slides, playground structures, interactive games, sports, small open-air theatres, outdoor cinemas, and other devices that induce the appearance of new public spaces in unexpected places.

The award ceremony in Wimbledon Bookfest

On October 8, the winner of the competition was announced in an event celebrated in Wimbledon Bookfest. Pablo Sendra (currently based in London) and Javier Martínez attended the event to receive the award. We had the opportunity to meet the enthusiastic community group that had won the “creative community” award and discover that we shared many ideas. We also had the opportunity to meet representatives from Love Wimbledon, Future Merton and the Design Council.

The event was preceded by a keynote by the renowned landscape architect Marta Schwartz, who had very nice words towards our proposal.

A great opportunity to participate in rethinking Wimbledon’s town centre

In addition to the monetary prize, the award also implies being an 18-month contract with Merton Council as design advisor for the masterplan. This will be a great opportunity to work with community groups, the council and Love Wimbledon for reimagining a more playful town centre.